his style was one of america's greatest gifts to democracy. due to the universal nature of his character, lincoln remains an everlasting contemporary as his life highlights the past and present. as the society, we have adapted his identity to accommodate new concerns. but not to the point where we have negated what it previously represented. in 1893, "the new york times" ran an article called three great leaders: washington, lincoln, and grant. in 1985 they published an article getting right with lincoln. this explored american politicians and everyone else to square their own position with what they thought would be lincoln's position on the matter. they were drawn to his leadership. and measured their success by that which lincoln would have approved. and in 1974 "time" magazines asked who were the greatest leaders? lincoln's named appeared most frequently. c-span's 2009 presidential poll released the past president's day has abraham lincoln's first as he was in the last c-span survey in 2000 and today in 2009, 200 years after his birth, we